MERCHANDISING AND LICENSING 413
in syndication through the 1970s and 1980s and spawned a feature fi lm in 1966. In
the 1970s, the character was featured as part of the Superfriends cartoon series. In
1989, Warner Brothers, by then the owner of DC Comics, released a darker, massively
successful Batman fi lm that was followed by three sequels over the next decade. Th e
franchise was rebooted in 2005 with Batman Begins.
Each of these media appearances increased the visibility of the character, and
expanded his appeal beyond comic books. Batman has become part of the larger
American (and to a lesser extent international) culture; many people who have never
read comic books can identify the character. Th is allows DC to license the charac-
ter’s image for a wide range of purposes, from common toys and juvenile clothing to
more elaborate art and advertising uses. Successful licensing programs have generally
increased the ability of comic book publishers to sell merchandise based on their
characters.
In the United States, DC has long been the king of licensing and merchandising
among comic book publishers. Th e company owns Superman , Batman and Robin,
and Wonder Woman , the most widely known characters in the superhero genre. DC
has relentlessly exploited their name recognition by using the characters in television
and feature fi lms. DC has long been part of larger media interests. It was purchased
in 1968 by Kinney National Services, which purchased Warner Brothers fi lm studio
in 1969 and formed Warner Communications in 1971. Due to subsequent consolida-
tion in mass media industries, DC later became part of Time-Warner, one of the larg-
est international media conglomerates. Even though DC has generally trailed Marvel
Comics as the largest publisher of comic books since the late 1960s, the company’s
media connections have ensured that its licensing eff orts have been more lucrative.
Licensing and merchandising has also been an important source of revenue for
Marvel. In 1969, Marvel’s founder Martin Goodman sold the company to Cadence In-
dustries, a conglomerate that used Marvel’s characters to market some of their own
products, such as children’s vitamins. Under Cadence’s control, Marvel also developed
a substantial presence in television animation. In 1985, Cadence sold Marvel to New
World Pictures for $46 million. Th ree years later, fi nancial trouble forced New World
to sell the company to fi nancier Ronald Perelman. Perelman used Marvel’s position in
the comic book industry to buy companies that enhanced Marvel’s ability to sell licensed
products. Before it went into bankruptcy in 1996, Marvel had purchased trading card
manufacturers, juvenile publishing interests, and part of Toy Biz, a toy company. Marvel
fi nanced some of the Toy Biz purchase by granting the company an exclusive, perpetual,
worldwide license to make toys based on the Marvel characters.
Despite the fact that Marvel’s value to both New World and Perelman clearly lay
in licensable characters, the company has historically not been as successful as DC in
developing their licenses. As late as 1985, Marvel derived only about eight percent of
its revenue from licensing; In the same year, well before the wave of Batman products
brought forth by the 1989 fi lm, DC derived over 60 percent of its income from licens-
ing. Th e success of the Spider-Man and X-Men fi lm franchises at the beginning of
